Amazing Vignettes Page 7

  The bulbous flotation chamber mounted on the back of the suit provided buoyancy and with this he would rise again. He felt thrilled to be permitted the first three thousand foot dive.

  He spoke into the sono-phone:

  “Can you pick me up?”

  “Faintly,” came the answer, “The sono-gear is losing it’s sensitivity. After twenty-eight hundred we won’t be able to pick you up.”

  The powerful searchlight mounted on the suit kept a clear cone of visibility before Swain. He felt no fear. He was an experienced diver, but even now he found it hard to realize that he was going incredibly deep in just a metal suit. True it was a monstrously armored structure, but the eerie feeling of being alone this deep assailed him. He tightened his metallic claws more firmly around the trident he was equipped with.

  Then abruptly he had the feeling he was no longer sinking. He had touched bottom. He was off the California coast at three thousand feet! No man had ever penetrated the depths of this region. The spheres and subs were nothing compared with this.

  Swain sank to his knees in a soft muddy muck. He adjusted his buoyancy more carefully. He rose easily out of the wastes. The little propellor at his back forced him smoothly along.

  Without warning the horror was on him. Into the glare of the brilliant light, Swain caught sight of the strange creature. It was a decapod, akin to the octopus. But there the resemblance stopped. Nor did Swain have time to catalogue it nicely. Its gaping mouth or mouths, lined with hideous bony structures, bit fiercely against the steel. They might have been chewing on rock for all the damage they did. Calmly, though his heart pounded like a trip-hammer, Swain drove his trident again and again into that queer rubbery flesh before him.

  The monster retreated and attacked again. Again Swain drove it off. The cone of light disclosed that the water was taking on a blackish tinge from the creature’s blood. Finally it ceased its futile efforts.

  The rest of the brief exploration was soon over. Shortly Swain turned his valves and arose.

  “Well,” Klemper said jovially, “tell me Captain Nemo, how did it feel to be down in the quiet and peace of the deeps?”

  Swain looked up and laughed. “Peace—quiet? You’ve got another think coming. Come on down with me next time. Maybe my buddy will give you the once over!”

  Shadow . . .

  Lee Owen

  I SPOTTED him the minute he stepped from the Jovian Ueear II. He walked fast and the usually courteous custom agents didn’t detain him any longer than the other passengers. The System Police can’t grab a private citizen without a mighty good reason, so I had to catch him with the goods too, before I could nail him.

  I knew he was as guilty as sin. Fletcher at the Bureau told me that zinta was getting through, and because that drug tears the soul from the body after three injections and makes a raving idiot of the user, Janton had to be brought to justice. But so strong are the personal liberty laws, that the Police can’t grab without plenty of evidence.

  Jan ton scooted through the huge terminal without so much as a glance around. He knew his way. I could swear that somewhere, either in his baggage or on his person was plenty of that virulent, hellish drug. The question was, how to find it? If I jumped him now, I’d be taking a chance on not getting it at all for I wasn’t sure he had it with him—yet he might. So there was nothing to do but follow.

  He left the terminal by a side entrance. I was puzzled. All he could do was to go to the yards. Why would he do that? Certainly that drug wasn’t going to anybody but the wealthy. He climbed a scaffold framework. It was arranged about the framework of huge craft which looked something like a private yacht. This must be it. Keeping in the shadows and away from the strong lights, I saw the small knot of people gathered near a rail.

  Janton saw them too. Hastily he started to confer with them. I saw him reach into his pocket. I would have been wise to have grabbed him before. I made up for lost time.

  I made too much noise. He saw me coming. He knew I could be only one thing. The crowd—seven or eight men—spotted me too. They also scattered but I had eyes only for Janton. He ran along a cat-walk. I followed like mad, my weapon in my hands. I didn’t fire for fear, of missing. I wanted him alive too.

  Then it happened. He was just running beneath the tail end of a Class Three freighter, a huge bulky old wreck that has seen better days. Suddenly it let go a test blast of its tube, and I felt the heat from fifty feet away. I caught the hideous pitiful scream of Janton—but it vanished in his shriveled and seared throat.

  I looked at the burnt cinder lying on the blackened ferro-concrete. You’re as guilty as sin, I thought, Janton, but even you didn’t deserve it that way. The yard police came up as I stood there. I gestured toward Janton’s body. “Forty million credits in zinta,” I said. “He’s got it on—that cinder has, but he won’t get any more . . .”

  Obstacle!

  Lee Owen

  THE SEVEN stellite needles pointed skyward, poised in their racks, their pilots preparing for the great event. Technicians scurried around making last-minute adjustments. Everything had to be perfect for the Eleventh Lunar Race. A hundred million videos were focused on this field and would follow, through the medium of relays, the entire course of the race to the Moon and back.

  His handlers were fitting Craig into his space-suit, when the burly contestant walked up.

  “You haven’t got a chance,” Jenner said sneeringly, open mockery on his face. “I’ve got this one sewed up—just like last year. And I’m not afraid . . .”

  Craig turned white. “I—I . . .” he started to say. “The hell with you, Jenner.” He turned away, and Jenner laughingly walked toward his crew.

  “Forget it, Craig,” Clem said. “You used your head last year, that’s all. Let the damn fool kill himself.”

  Twenty minutes later Craig was crouched on the acceleration table in the rocket, awaiting the starting signal. His cheeks still burned when he thought of Jenner’s remark. He had lost last year’s race because of too much caution. His detectors said ‘meteor’—and that stopped him.

  Resolutely Craig turned his mind from the past to the present. The signal whined and flashed on the board and his fingers played over the studs. A billion people were enjoying the vicarious thrill of the Lunar Race.

  Skillfully Craig’s hand toyed with the firing studs and braced his body against the violent surges of acceleration. His mind and body were a machine now, intent on one thing—winning!

  The initial period of monotony set in as the velocity built up. On his screens Craig saw the pips that were the six other contestants. All were relatively close. The violence of the race wouldn’t be apparent until the return lap.

  Then it happened. The pip identifying Jenner’s needle changed subtly. Craig watched through the visi-port. He was trailing the field and everything was perfectly clear. He saw the whole thing. Jenner’s needle had stopped a meteor! The flare of light told that! Not a racer swerved.

  Craig thought: Why stop and pick him up. I hate him to begin with. If I stop the race is over for me. Besides the patrols will pick him up in a jiffy! Then he thought of a punctured suit, the air rapidly escaping, the agonized convulsions of a dying man. Sweat stood out on Craig’s forehead. All he had to do was ignore the dot ahead of him. It was decreasing acceleration and soon he’d overtake it.

  It was too much. Craig’s nimble fingers played with the studs, matching velocity to the injured racer. He’d pick up the Jenner needle. Even as he decided he knew the race was over for him . . .

  The Monitors picked up Craig and his human burden ten minutes later. The white-faced Jenner, alive by Craig’s grace was still unconscious. The Monitor Captain greeted Craig in the air-lock. He took a look at Jenner’s body.

  “He’ll live,” he said professionally, “but it’s only because of you, Craig. Why did you do it? Everybody knows how badly you wanted to win this one.”

  There was a funny little smile on Craiig’s face.

  “Of
course I wanted to,” he said, “but there’s next year’s brawl. I’ll take that one.”

  “But why—why about Jenner?” The Monitor insisted.

  Craig threw back his head. There was pride on his face. “I’ll tell you, Captain,” he said cheerfully, “it’s simple. We’re men . . .”

  The Monitor clapped him on the back. “I think I understand,” he said slowly. “Even racing has ethics . . .” He looked at Craig. “Next year, I predict you’ll take the prize. You’ve already got a bigger one than the race . . .”

  The Diamond Cosmos

  Ramsey Sinclair

  PROFESSOR Cramer’s laboratory was at the far end of the long Metallurgical Building. Blakesley, despite having done graduate work under the man, knew his idosyncrasies, and he knocked before entering. The door opened.

  “Come in, Blakesley,” Cramer said curtly. The lab hadn’t changed. It was still a jumbled maze of electrical, metallurgical and chemical equipment, scattered about in apparent confusion.

  “You’re surprised I called you over, eh?” Cramer asked. Blakesley noticed that even at fifty-five, the man, Cramer, seemed to retain his positive authoritativeness. God knew, he deserved to, for in metals, his name was world-famous.

  “Yes, frankly I am,” Blakesley agreed. “You must have run into something unusual, though I’m still surprised you called on me.”

  “I’ve liked you, Blakesley, and I know I can rely on you. I want to ask you something very important. Do you think I’m sane?”

  “Are you serious?” Blakesley asked, amazed. He laughed. “You must be joking.”

  “I was never more serious in my life, bit down a minute. I want to talk with you. Cigarette?”,

  “Thanks.”

  “All right,” Cramer said, after both men had lit up, “what field would you say I was best known in?”

  “Synthetic diamonds, allotropic forms of carbon.” Blakesley shot back.

  “Right. I’ve been doing a lot more work in the field. I’ve recently made a diamond weighing four grams!”

  Blakesley sat up. “Four grams!” he gasped. Why the biggest Moissans ever made were fractions of a caret—milligrams.”

  “I want to get on with it. I’ll show you the synthetic in a minute. It weighs four grams, believe me. Right now, it’s under the microscope. I used a conventional carbon-in-molten iron solution, and I supercooled in water—as usual. The trick is that I’ve found a catalyst which gives me big ones. It’s titanium, but that’s not important.”

  “What do you mean, ‘not important’, Professor?” Blakesley asked. “You’ll wreck the entire diamond market—the whole outfit of DeBeers will be on your neck. You’ll help science terrifically with a cheap source of synthetic diamonds.”

  Cramer waved a deprecatory hand. “Forget it. What’s important is something else.” He glanced keenly at Blakesley as if to assure the younger man that he was sober.

  “Do you remember,” he continued, “a story by Fitz-James O’Brien?”

  “Sure, the ‘Diamond Lens’. I’ve never forgotten it. But what has science fiction to do with you.”

  “Remember that the microscopist looked into a diamond through a microscope—and what he saw there?”

  “Yes. He saw a miniature universe—a place—a space with a beautiful girl beckoning him to her. Say, you’re not trying to . . .”

  “I’m not trying anything, Blakesley. Just look through this microscope.”

  The two men went over to a bench and Blakesley bent over to peer through the barrel of a binocular microscope, on the stage of which was unquestionably, a huge, unmarred, crystalline diamond of breathtaking beauty.

  Blakesley stared through the instrument for a long time. Finally he straightened. His face was ashen.

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly, “whether or not I’m imagining things, but I swear I saw something move under that thing.”

  “Is that all?” Cramer asked, and there was an almost pleading look on his face.

  Blakesley stared again. This time, the murky glittering scene seemed to come alive. He strained to see. He forced himself to gaze through aching eyes. Gradually the haziness seemed to clarify. Slowly an image resolved itself. For one fleeting instant he could have sworn he saw a human being—it could have been a girl—but that was ridiculous! He shook his head. Finally he turned to Cramer, who was waiting impatiently.

  “I think we’re both tired, Professor Cramer,” he said. “This is fantastic. I think I’ll leave now. May I come tomorrow and talk this over?”

  “She’s the most beautiful thing I ever saw,” Cramer said, as if he had not heard Blakesley’s words. “She’s incredible. O’Brien wasn’t writing science-fiction.”

  . . . Blakesley closed the door quietly as he went out. In the dark corridor, the events of the preceding minutes seemed unreal. He went to his rooms and slept a troubled night’s sleep.

  The next morning there seemed to be great confusion at the Metallurgical Building. Blakesley cornered a student. “What’s happened?” he asked curiously.

  “They found Cramer dead in the lab. Some kind of an explosion.”

  Numbly Blakesley walked toward the building. Cramer had been right—and so had O’Brien. There was a girl in the diamond . . .

  The Iapetan Night Shade

  A.T. Kedzie

  RANDY MITCHELL felt a cold drop of sweat trickle down inside his tunic collar. For a moment he felt as if the cold metal walls of the airlock would constrict and crush him. The thirty foot space-boat lay in its cradle like a monument tilted on its side. The entrance door to the airlock hung open. Randy swallowed, almost forcing himself to keep his eyes open.

  She said: “I’m going to have to kill you.” Even as he faced death he could not but help be aware of her beauty. She was the loveliest woman he had ever seen. She was tall and slender, her perfectly formed body surmounted by a face which appeared as if carved in pure cameo.

  The events of the last two days flashed through his mind. What a fool! He should have known she was one of the Senep gang. She’d been too smooth, too ready with explanations. Sure the Bureau head, Dr. Cranston, had warned him that the operatives were slick. Hell, he knew that himself. Hadn’t he knocked out Cramer? But he’d never expected that this alluring woman—you couldn’t use the word “girl”—was one of the Seneps, running “dream-joy” through to Tellus from Iapetus aboard the trans-Jovian liners of Mars and Tellus and Jupiter.

  Bitterly he cursed himself for being the fool. To think he’d talked of love with her! Why that hellcat wouldn’t know the meaning of the word—though she damned well knew the power of her sex. She’d played him for a dummy all right.

  She was smiling and even as an executioner she looked more beautiful than most women as lovers.

  “I’m sorry, Randy,” she said, “I’ve actually come to like you. But you’re a fool—and an agent.” She sighed wearily. “That means I have to shoot you. And then I’ll take this boat and go.”

  She stopped Randy’s speech with a motion of her pistol. “I know—” she said quickly, “you think the Patrol—hah! I was at the communicator—and there’s nothing within ten million kilometers.”

  Her eyes blinked once, and in their violent depths Randy sensed his death was being written that instant. The judgment was right, but as the pistol flared Randy dropped. He felt a searing pain in his side as the heat-bolt caught him, then blackness, the curtain of oblivion . . .

  He came to, minutes later in a fog of irresolution and a wash of nausea. The lock was cold and the boat was gone. She had flown! Hoar-frost of condensed air rimed the edge of the outer door through which the boat had fled, and Randy’s body felt as if it had been put through a ringer.

  When the boat had gone through the lock, the air had gone with it, and while the automatic trips had closed the doors and reloaded the lock with air, for a moment Randy had been in a vacuum.

  He opened the door, half-crawling, half-staggering his way through into the corridor. Two passeng
ers spotted him and in a little while, Randy found himself in Captain Faherne’s cabin, a solicitous doctor hovering over him, and an anxious officer wanting to question him.

  “. . . a Senep agent shot me—” Randy watched the Captain’s eyes widen at the word “Senep” for it was known wherever spacemen went. “—she dumped a load of dream joy on Tellus and she was going back for more.” Randy tried to sit up. He winced with the effort.

  “Take it easy son,” the doctor said kindly, “That’s a nasty burn.”

  “You keep saying ‘she’—whom do you mean?” the Captain asked.

  “Phrane Larrene—the hell of it is—she got away in your number Eight boat. That’s where she left me for dead—in the air-lock.”

  Randy looked at the officer. There was a broad smile on Faherne’s face.

  “Well, well,” he said thoughtfully, “that is interesting.”

  “What do you mean ‘interesting’ ? There’ll be hell to pay when the Patrol finds I’ve missed the Senep’s biggest agent.”

  “You haven’t missed a thing, Mitchell.” Faherne turned to a crewman orderly. “Run this to Communications,” he said. “Patrol Iapetus; Pick up a class four boat—throw in our coordinates. Vessel adrift with no power. Iapetan nightshade aboard—Phrane Larrene—handle with care. Signed, Faherne.”

  “Wha . . . wha . . .” Randy stuttered.

  “Boats number Eight, Nine and Ten, were out for repairs,” Faherne said, a delighted grin on his face. “Your Iapetan threw herself out on the ejectors. Won’t she be mad when she finds she’s going straight to Tellus when the Patrol picks her up.

  “Of all the luck,” Randy said feelingly. “I muff the biggest chance ever—and then this takes over. Captain, I owe you a drink. Will you join me in the lounge—if this doctor will guarantee I won’t fall apart?”